This is the class blog for Eng 1102 at GA Tech called "Fiction, Human Rights, and Social Responsibility." The purpose of this blog is to extend our discussion beyond the classroom and to become aware of human rights issues that exist in the world today and how technology has played a role in either solving or aggravating them. Blogs will be a paragraph long (250 words) and students will contribute once every three weeks according to class number. Entries must be posted by Friday midnight.

Friday, June 27, 2014

The Difficulty of Life Without Guaranteed Rights

Even though I watched Europa Europa with prior knowledge of Hitler’s dehumanization of
the Jews during the Holocaust, this film further opened my eyes to its cruelty.
I enjoyed this film because not only was it well-crafted to capture all the
students’ interest but also informative, exposing the unbearable lives of the
Jews during the time period.

The film portrays Nazi’s countless
violations of human rights during the Holocaust-era which made survival so difficult
for the Jews. It starts with a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights—“No
one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment”, which is exemplified by the repeated
scenes of hanging and torturing of the Jews. Nazis continue to take away Jew’s
rights such as “the right to manifest his religion or belief in teaching,
practice, worship and observance.” Solly is a great example of a Jew who had
completely lost this right—he couldn’t even get close to proudly manifesting
his religion; he had to hide his true identity and pledge himself as Hitler’s
soldier in order to survive. I don’t see this as Solly’s fault in any way because
anyone would have done the same if he/she was placed in Solly’s situation. It is
clear that Solly hadn’t lied of his identity in a sense of betrayal. We can see
this when he is forced to stab a doll with the Star of David on it during his
time in the Hitler youth academy. While all the other boys confidently stabbed
the doll with the hatred towards Jews that the adults had taught them, Solly
couldn’t help but to hesitate. Although all of Solly wanted to live as a Jew,
the Germans’ unreasonable hatred towards the Jews led him to hide his identity,
which makes it clear that the Jews were out of possession of their human
rights.

Although I can’t dare to compare my story
to Solly’s, I can in a sense understand the confusion of identity Solly
encounters for survival. Solly’s sole purpose was to stay alive, which led him
to helplessly alternate between a Russian, German, and a Jew throughout the
movie. I can relate to Solly as I live a two-sided life of a Korean American. As
the first generation, I encounter many situations where I would have to choose
one identity over another. There are advantages and disadvantages of both sides,
therefore making me unsure of which I wish to identify myself as. However, no
matter how many times I think about my identity, I always end up becoming proud
of my nationality as a South Korean. I believe that Solly feels the same, as he
frees his tears when he meets his brother and accepts himself as a Jew—the tears
he held back as a German and a Russian. Although Solly did end up protecting
his identity despite the difficulty to do so without his rights, I believe that
these human rights that we take for granted should be enforced in a more active
manner.